


The First Time we Met

by PiratePlume



Category: The Night Shift (TV 2014)
Genre: Drabble, You guys wanted some fluff so I give you babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 17:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1950483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiratePlume/pseuds/PiratePlume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Directly following the end of Storm Watch (S01E05), TC goes for a walk through the hospital and comes across the nursery where he realizes he hasn't introduced himself to Topher's other newborn daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Time we Met

_Oh! Look at this! We have the prom king and queen power couple running this place. Give 'em a hand!_

The echoed sound of hands clapping faded away with the memory of those words spoken just under an hour ago. In his mind he still saw her, turning slowly to look at him, their gazes locking. Remembering her while he still tasted a hint her in his mouth, achingly sweet, was the worst sort of torture. Those of the night shift had left shortly after Ragosa had made the announcement, but TC hadn’t. The idea of leaving the hospital only to return to his place, all quiet and lonely, wasn’t a thought he wanted to entertain.

Still in his blue scrub top and jeans he wandered quietly through the various fluorescently lit hallways. Eventually he was stopped by a wall and without realizing it, realized he had wandered toward the large plexiglass window situated before the nursery. He blinked and took a breath, fingers gripping the wall at the base of the window frame, and looked out over the sea of bundled up infants in their beds. For a moment he only watched them, so accustom to seeing and remembering death over and over that he sometimes forgot what new life looked like.

Suddenly TC wasn’t thinking about Dr. Scott Clemmens coming to work at San Antonio Hospital or how Jordan had kissed him back in the locker room before the announcement. He wasn’t wondering how far it would have gone if Kenny hadn’t interrupted them or what would have happened if someone else would have walked in. TC was remembering what it had felt like to hold that newborn baby girl in his hands, his niece, and how he’d been filled with so much wonderment and joy that it felt foreign.

Straightening away from the wall, a small smile quirked at the corners of his mouth, he walked toward the nursery door. It opened with a soft click and he moved as gently and cautiously as he could, suddenly aware of every movement he made. “Dr. Callahan?” The nurse who had been checking the vitals of the newborns looked at him with a frown, confused at his presence.

“I’ll be in and out in a minute,” he whispered back, “please.” Technically he wasn’t supposed to be back here.

She watched him for a moment, clearly weighing on whether or not the fact of him being back here could get her in trouble, and then shrugged. “Alright.” She consented, shaking her head at the smile that cracked over his face, and turned back to looking over the charts of each little patient in the nursery.

He washed his hands at the sink quickly, his heart in his throat, and then moved around through the beds as his eyes went rapidly over each name he came across. Young, Sanchez, Murray, Hawkins… _No, no, no, and no._ Along the rows he went until, at last, two beds were side by side. Zia. One was empty, the child he’d delivered still being cared for, but in the crib beside it was the other little girl, the one he hadn’t met yet.

He stilled as he watched her sleeping, her little rosy lips open just a gap, her tiny fingers barely poking up from the soft pink blanket she was swaddled in. TC could have been watching her for seconds, minutes, or even days. Transfixed by this sight of new life, of this little girl that would be his niece, he couldn’t move. The constant barrage of hell that seized his body and pulled his mind from the present seemed powerless in her presence.

He drew in a breath and sniffed, clearing his throat and lifting his hand to brush at a dab of wetness on his cheeks. He hadn’t realized he was crying. Exhaling, he wiped at the other eye, drying them and smiling a bit wider as Topher’s daughter opened her eyes. “Hey,” he whispered, “hey there little girl.” He reached forward, careful, these hands that were always so still when they tended to a patient were even more so as he handled her. “I got to meet your sister earlier,” he carried on the conversation, not caring that she couldn’t understand him or that he wasn’t alone in the nursery, too involved in her. “But not you.”

He cradled her against his wide chest, tucked her into his arms and smiled down into her face, watching as she squirmed and then stilled, comfortable in his arms. “I’m your uncle TC and I didn’t get to tell your sister this, but I’ll tell you,” he swallowed, “I’m going to always be there for you two, okay? You guys can always come to me, with anything.” He bounced her softly in his arms, supported her head, held her as if she were the most precious thing on this earth. “Even when your dad is being boring and your mom is being a mom, just come to your uncle TC’s, hey?” The breath that followed was a gentle laugh. “Your dad used to be wild, you know. Best break-dancer in the 75th division. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true.”

Holding her, this little girl with so much potential in this world, didn’t make talking about the past hurt as much. TC wasn’t taken by skeletal hands of memories best left in the grave and instead stayed in that nursery, holding the daughter of the man who he saw as the only brother he had left in this world.

“I still _am_ the best break-dancer, you know.” Came a voice that suddenly tore TC from the private moment he was sharing with Topher’s little girl. His grin held an edge of its normal charm as he turned to look at Topher, lingering near the doorway.

“Not right now you’re not.” TC’s thick, dark eyebrows lifted, gaze drifting to Topher’s crotch as if to make the point without saying it. Even through his relief of his family being safe, TC could see the exhaustion in lines on Topher’s face and in the way he’d held himself. He’d had a rough night. “Scott’s hired on as head of trauma,” he said, and though he tried to keep his voice light and pretend he didn’t care, there was an edge in his tone.

“I heard.” Topher said, walking forward and reaching to place a hand on TC’s shoulder, squeezing gently. Nothing more had to be said, not right now. His eyes wandered down to his daughter and he smiled as a proud, happy father.

“You should be getting some sleep, Toph,” TC said. “You’ve had a hell of a night.”

“Yeah.” Topher exhaled, nodding. “So have you. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t in here corrupting my daughter before she’s even been in this world for a day.”

“What? Me? Never.” TC said, playfully. “Maybe I should have been offering _you_ the place to come and stay. **Four** girls in one house, Toph.”

“Don’t remind me.” Topher groaned and held out his hands to take his daughter from TC’s arms. For a moment there was only silence as she settled in her father’s hold. Silence and some of the only people in this world that TC loved.

“She’s beautiful, Toph,” he said, watching as she wrapped her tiny fingers around Topher’s and he smiled. “They both are.”

“Yeah, they are.”


End file.
